In the development of a digital data delivery system, it is found that an analog to the physical generation of a printed document is advantageous for acceptance of an electronic version of the document for presentation to an end-user such as a customer receiving for instance, a bill from a company with which that customer does business. In many legacy computer systems, mainframe computers are used to generate print stream information in one of a plurality of formats, including the AFP file format. It is thus desirable to be able to use such a file format as the basis for generating electronic document in a digital document delivery system.
A print stream separator according to the present invention receives print stream data from an associated generator of such information, such as a legacy mainframe computer print stream output. Such information in a typical application may contain a plurality of customer bills for presentation to the customers of a particular company. Bill information and accompanying customer account information form at least part of this print stream. Such information in the past would generally be directed to a high speed, high volume printer in a particular file format such as the AFP file format for generation of the customer bills with insertion of one or more hard copy inserts, typically of an advertisement or informational nature. Such inserts are put into the customer""s bill based upon information concerning the identified customer as derived from a customer preference database and with the specific inserts being determined based upon a prioritization in view of information received from the customer preference database so as to maintain a certain weight limit for the hard copy mailing.
The present invention provides a print stream separator which receives the initial print stream data, as well as information from a customer preference database. The print stream separator then determines which documents are to be generated in electronic form and which are to be directed to a high speed, high volume printer, such that the data presented to the high speed, high volume is separate and distinct from the data sent for ultimate presentation and viewing in electronic form. Information within the customer preference file for each customer is the basis upon which a determination is made as to directing the print stream either to the high speed, high volume printer or to an electronic inserter for presentation in electronic form.
If the data is to be presented in electronic form, the print stream separator generates two outputs, a first output representing the customer primary document to be ultimately viewed by the customer, as well as an Electronic Mail Run Data File (EMRDF), which includes a header and fields containing information directed to that customer and the preference of inserts to be generated with the primary document for that customer. Both the electronic document print stream and the EMRDF document record for the customer are then presented to the electronic inserter, which in turn receives job setup data from an associated job setup application module, including information for links associated with particular inserts to be associated with the customer""s primary document. The electronic inserter generates an output print stream in an AFP file format containing the primary document information. The EMRDF file is communicated to the router instruction processor (RIP) and contains information regarding specific links for xe2x80x9cinsertsxe2x80x9d (secondary documents) which are to be associated with the primary document.
As more fully described in co-pending application Ser. No. 09/222,196 entitled System and Method for Presenting and Processing Documents on the Internet, filed on the same date herein, and assigned to the same assignee, the print data stream from the electronic inserter is presented to an interactive bill presentation server (IBPS), under the control of a bill processing server (BPS). The IBPS output is ultimately presented to a customer having access to a computer with an associated web browser so as to allow view of the primary document and the associated inserts. The customer can, after viewing the primary document (which typically would be in the nature of a bill), respond to the primary document (bill) such as to make payment thereof. This response information is processed by the overall digital document delivery system by means of the bill processor server which updates the customer""s account database such as to indicate payment of a bill or the like.